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    Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery
    Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery
    Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery
    Audiobook13 hours

    Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery

    Written by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin

    Narrated by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The acclaimed author of Carved in Sand—a veteran investigative journalist who endured persistent back pain for decades—delivers the definitive book on the subject: an essential examination of all facets of the back pain industry, exploring what works, what doesn't, what may cause harm, and how to get on the road to recovery.

    In her effort to manage her chronic back pain, investigative reporter Cathryn Jakobson Ramin spent years and a small fortune on a panoply of treatments. But her discomfort only intensified, leaving her feeling frustrated and perplexed. As she searched for better solutions, she exposed a much bigger problem. Costing roughly $100 billion a year, spine medicine—often ineffective and sometimes harmful —exemplified the worst aspects of the U.S. health care system.

    The result of six years of intensive investigation, Crooked offers a startling look at the poorly identified risks of spine medicine, and provides practical advice and solutions. Ramin interviewed scores of spine surgeons, pain management doctors, physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians, exercise physiologists, physical therapists, chiropractors, specialized bodywork practitioners. She met with many patients whose pain and desperation led them to make life-altering decisions, and with others who triumphed over their limitations.

    The result is a brilliant and comprehensive book that is not only important but essential to millions of back pain sufferers, and all types of health care professionals. Ramin shatters assumptions about surgery, chiropractic methods, physical therapy, spinal injections and painkillers, and addresses evidence-based rehabilitation options—showing, in detail, how to avoid therapeutic dead ends, while saving money, time, and considerable anguish. With Crooked, she reveals what it takes to outwit the back pain industry and get on the road to recovery.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMay 9, 2017
    ISBN9780062674340
    Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery
    Author

    Cathryn Jakobson Ramin

    Investigative journalist Cathryn Jakobson Ramin is the author of Carved in Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife, published by HarperCollins in 2007. Her new book about the back pain industry, Crooked, will be published in April 2017.  She’s written for many national magazines on topics that include healthcare, neuroscience, business, public policy,  travel, art, design and culture.  A popular speaker, these days, she’s booking lectures that enlighten patients,  health care practitioners, corporations and medical facilities about how to manage back pain. Cathryn is married to Ron Ramin, a music composer. They have two adult sons, Avery and Oliver, and a Jack Russell-Daschundt mix dog named Dasch, after the punctuation mark, which he resembles. She divides her time between Northern California and New York City. Facebook: http://bit.ly/fbcrooked . Twitter: @cjramin

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    Reviews for Crooked

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    • 5/5
      Fantastic book that took many years of research and expert support to write!

      I would recommend it for anyone who has back pain and especially those who do not have a good understanding of all the options for care. It is a long book because it covers the gamut of problematic interventions in the first section and all the potential healing and care options in the second section.
    • 4/5
      Good info but a bit too long

      The most important bits are keep moving. Do not fear neither catastrophies pain. Use your back. Exercise and strengthen constantly.
    • 5/5
      Valuable information for anyone. Money driven medicine is a real problem. Fear = profits. Educate yourself and others
    • 3/5
      Too much unnecessary information it should be a book of half it’s current length.
    • 4/5
      This book is divided into two distinct parts. The first part deals with the various "solutions" that are commonly presented to back pain sufferers by medical professionals, and the problems that lie therein. The second part deals with the author's various attempts to find better solutions.The first half of the book is excellent. It consists of top-notch investigative reporting into the perils, schemes, and even outright corruption that permeates the traditional supposed remedies for back pain. This mostly covers various types of surgical operations and chiropractic care. It makes for surprisingly fascinating reading and is important knowledge for anyone who suffers from back pain. If you don't have it in you to read the entire book, I'd recommend at least reading part one.The second part is not as strong as the first. It covers the author's personal journey to find a reasonable solution for back pain. In practice this constitutes various types of exercise and gentle movement practices (e.g. back extensions and tai chi). While there's value in knowing about these options, there's no real comparison among them and thus it's difficult for the reader to know which are the best options to pursue. However, in this reader's humble opinion, the biggest problem is what was omitted from the book. There's no mention of trigger points, trigger point therapy, or myofascial pain. I firmly believe that these are the cause of 80% or more of most people's back pain. To have them not mentioned at all in this book is a huge oversight. My personal experience was that back extensions + trigger point therapy was the winning combo that finally conquered some low back pain that I had for a year, some years ago. So my suggestion is to read at least the first part of this book, and then find a good book on trigger point therapy (which you can generally do by yourself with a tennis ball, nothing more!) and get started. The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook might be a logical next read, though there are other worthy volumes out there as well.